Hard Attack
by OffCenterFold
Summary: Kaoru's POV.  Whatever you expect, this is not it.  Warning: Bad Puns Abound Ahead - which sounds almost as painful as it may actually be.  Proceed with caution.


Hard Attack

I had never imagined that all of us would have come to live here in the dojo, so many years after we'd first met. Fifteen years ago, in a period of less than six months, we fell into each other's lives. None of us imagined what we would go through together when we first met, but by the time we went our separate ways, I think every one of us was wishing in some way that none of it had ever happened, except for the friendships we took with us. Even five years ago, I would never have imagined Sano, Aoshisan, and Kenshin living under one roof with Misaochan, Megumisan, and me. Of course, I had never even imagined how things might change over time.

Funny how things work out. Megumisan's clinic had done well but when Oguni Genzaisensei died, she left it to come back to Tokyo to run the Oguni clinic. She said it would be a temporary thing, but that was eight years ago. She hadn't been comfortable living in the clinic where he'd died, however, and so she'd come to stay with us.

Misaochan's visits had become more and more frequent over time, until one day she just didn't go back to Kyoto. She had dragged Aoshisan with her, letting the others handle the running of the Aoiya as they always had. He had decided to just go with the flow.

When Sano returned to Japan, he drifted right back to where he'd left off, and had made himself right at home. He had found a job eventually, and even managed not to get fired; while he now met his financial obligations, he still preferred to stay with us. It was around the same time that Yutaro returned from Germany and moved in with Yahiko. Somehow, I remember that none of us were surprised by that.

Yahiko and Yutaro were welcoming the youngest students; the first class in the morning was theirs to handle. They made a good pair and I was grateful to have them around. They usually seemed to be able to manage Kenji. My son, who was just about the same age Yahiko had been when we first met him, was getting to be quite a handful. As he grew older, he proved to have more of my temperament and his father's strength, which was turning out to be a difficult combination. His martial abilities far outstripped both mine and his father's, but he had an attitude problem, and I just didn't know what to do with him anymore. Kenshin had suggested sending him to his own former master, but I wasn't very keen on the idea just yet.

It wasn't that I didn't think Hikosan wasn't capable; he still looked like he was maybe in his late thirties. Kenshin himself looked like he might consider turning thirty one of these days, even though he was in his mid-forties.

When I'd first married him, things had been wonderful. He was a little slow to catch on about my feelings for him, but we'd loved one another well enough and our marriage had been good. It wasn't anyone's fault that after Kenji was born, things changed for us. First there was always the baby to think of. And then there was Misaochan.

She had never really gotten through to Aoshisan. I didn't think anyone had, really. He was just as quiet as ever, dark and brooding and not very much fun to be around. I think the reason Misaochan finally just moved here was him; everything that happened afterwards had just flowed as naturally as water. Neither one of us had intended anything to happen that long-ago night, but a little too much sake had flowed, and next thing any of us knew, Kenshin came into our room to find me and Misaochan sharing the futon I'd shared with him for years.

I think the only one who was surprised when he eventually moved into Megumisan's room was Megumisan. She had admitted to me one night that she had thought she sensed something between Kenshin and Aoshisan. She later found out that she'd been right, although I only learned of it the same way he'd learned of me and Misaochan. Sharing him didn't seem to bother her too much.

THAT had been a pretty awkward moment, but not as bad as when Sano found out about the two of us. He'd wanted to join in.

Occasionally, we let him. His stamina was still quite impressive.

For some reason I found myself remembering all this as I opened the shoji screens to let in the morning light. The rice paper panels were showing some wear, I noticed, and I realized I would have to replace them soon. Just another expense to add to the tally. We were all right, financially, but I would have to budget even more carefully than usual for it. Something about my hands looked odd, but I dismissed the feeling as just one of those mornings.

Yahiko was outside, practicing with Yutaro. I was glad they were getting a head start on the day, but even after all this time, Yahiko was still avoiding doing chores. Of course, he had moved into Sanosuke's old apartment years ago, well before Yutaro's return, so technically he really didn't have to, but somehow, none of us had ever seen fit to mention that to him. It was just so much more convenient to have him help out.

I was especially grateful to have them both nearby because of the rumors we'd heard lately of a group gone rogue. They seemed to have a political agenda, but for some reason no one they attacked ever seemed to want to discuss the attack itself or any of the circumstances surrounding it. They always attacked in the pre-dawn hours and generally did a lot of property damage but rarely actually injured anyone.

I had my suspicions. Many of the victims were people who did not live with their spouses in their own household but shared quarters with others. Some of the remainder were those who roomed together. Misaochan and I had been discussing it just the night before, I recalled. The group called itself the Spoiled Pear Faction – the Nashi Dainashi-batsu. It sounded like a very strange name to me, but I supposed they had their reasons.

I watched my students teaching students of their own and the now-familiar feeling of quiet satisfaction settled over me. I had to put my concerns over this minor terrorist group to rest; I considered them minor because as far as I know, no one had actually taken any serious injuries in their attacks, although the property damage was apparently not so insignificant. For the time being, there was the budget to balance, students to observe, and shopping to be done.

As it had turned out, Aoshisan was a fabulous cook, and Misaochan was pretty decent herself. They usually did most of the cooking for us and whatever students were around on any given day. Kenshin had never stopped doing most of the rest of the chores and he still seemed to enjoy it, which I simply did not get. Housework was a necessary evil, and was occasionally good for directing energy that beating on students did not relieve.

But I was older now, and tired more than I used to be. I no longer had the boundless energy of my teenage years. Rebuilding up a dojo, raising a child, simply living – especially life around Kenshin, whose past had a rather irritating way of catching up with him regularly and painfully – had taken their toll. I still had my beauty, of course, but instead of youthful I liked to think of myself as "timeless". In fact, I preferred the ageless beauty of a kendo master to the mere prettiness of my youth.

I watched my lover in the kitchen, admiring the way she moved. She'd aged, too; we all had, but her enthusiasm had not diminished one iota from our teen years. The rest of us had gotten a little calmer, a little quieter – even Yahiko – but not Misaochan. She kept me young at least as much as my students.

She bullied Aoshisan around worse than she had back in those days, too. For a long time I'd thought she was doing it to see how far she could push him. As time went on, I learned that it had started out that way, during her quest to bring him out of his shell, but it had long since become a habit.

All in all, it was a typical day in the Kamiya dojo. My dojo.

I looked at Kenshin, doing the laundry. He had taken his own name back after we had decided to sever our marriage, although our son remained Kamiya Kenji. His red hair, once vibrant, was starting to go grey although his face still looked so young that he was starting to seem out of place with the rest of us, more like a prematurely grey-haired student than the forty-something (or was he past fifty?) man he was.

Megumisan was bandaging Sano's hand again; it seemed he had never broken the habit of breaking faces – and the bones in his hand. He too was starting to go grey; Megumi had this one fabulous white streak and looked almost as pretty as me. I used to be jealous of how well she was aging, but then time was kind to me too, so I couldn't begrudge her. After all, my hair was still black as it had been.

Something seemed strange again in the back of my mind; I wondered why all of us were going grey so early and so simultaneously. None of us – except Yahiko and Yutaro – were under thirty-five, so it made some sense, but not that much.

Just like with my hands, I dismissed the weirdness as the passage of time.

The day passed as every other one had for the last many months. The students went home and I taught Yahiko and Yutaro. We all ate dinner together; Kenji and Megumi's young son (who looked suspiciously like Sanosuke, if the truth be told) ran off to enjoy the last hours of daylight while the rest of us sat around and took our time. Once they'd finished, Yahiko and Yutaro made noises about being tired and went back to they apartment that they shared. None of us were fooled.

Megumi retired shortly afterwards, and one by one we all drifted into various rooms to spend the night. Very few of us intended to sleep right away; I knew for example that Megumi would be writing in her journal, Aoshisan would be meditating, and Misaochan would be doing stretching exercises.

I lay in my futon and watched her unabashedly; Sano came in at some point looking forlorn, saying that Megumi had kicked him out. Apparently, Kenshin and Aoshi were both in her room that night. While that wasn't very common, it wasn't so unusual that we were surprised, so we made room for him. I didn't mind; the night was rather chilly for all the day had been beautiful. I settled down to sleep, secure in my friends and my love and my dojo.

It felt like I had just closed my eyes when we heard noises, as of something heavy moving on wheels through the gate of the dojo.

"THIS is for your crimes against what is right!" someone cried out, and suddenly there was a loud boom followed by an odd splatting sound.

We all ran out, in various states of preparedness, but none of us expected the sight that met us.

A large wooden cannon was being loaded with old fruit by a mass of humanity otherwise armed, as near as I could tell, with pens and looks of indignation.

They fired again, and the dojo took another hit; while the structure remained undamaged, I knew we were not going to be able to live or work here for quite some time to come. The rotten pears were coating everything with pungent, sticky juice which was getting into everything. All the effort, all the years I'd put in to establishing the dojo were being utterly even as I watched.

Of all the situations my friends and I had ever endured, this had to be the most surreal I could recall. And we all stood helpless against this hoard, unsure how to fight back. All we could do was hold on to each other and pray it would be over soon, or maybe that the police would come and scare them off. Then I thought of Chou, now chief of police here in Tokyo, and how he and his own partner Kamatari would laugh at us, and laugh… For honestly, we couldn't really fight off a crowd made largely of adolescent girls, with a few boys and a scattering of adults, all of whom were screaming demands that we go back to our original intendeds.

And the cannoned pears kept coming.

_[AN] Informationally: _Nashi_ = pear. _Dainashi_ = spoiled, come to nothing. -_batsu_ = clan, faction. Thus, _Nashidainashibatsu_ = The Spoiled Pear Faction. I do so love bad puns. It totally doesn't work in Japanese but I am clearly not concerned with "doing it right" here. Also, _Nashidainashibatsu_ is fun to say. Try it! Come on. You know you want to_. Nashi dainashi-batsu_. See? _

_If you want to be all Puritanical, keep reading past this note. Otherwise, enjoy. Feel free to keep reading even if you don't want to be all Puritanical, but while I originally intended to end it where it ends below, I thought that pretending the above WAS the end of the chapter might be more fun this way. _

_And yes, this is my own personal public raspberry both to V-Day and those who are a little obsessive about canon pairs. I am all for canon pairs. I just like to mix things up, especially when it comes to Megumi. ^n_~^ [/AN]_

She shot awake with a start, her heart pounding. The cannon was still roaring in her ears; the dojo really was under attack!

A moment passed before she realized that the cannon's roar was actually thunder, and the sound of the pears splattering on the dojo roof was simply the sound of rain. She could hear Yahiko snoring in the next room, and Megumisan was nowhere in sight. Her hands looked like the hands of the eighteen year old swordswoman she was, and not those of the matronly dojo master she had been in her dream.

"No more spicy food before bedtime ever again," Kaoru chastised herself. Shuddering, she lay back down and did not close her eyes again for a long time.

_Owari. Really._


End file.
